China Orders Apple to Remove Popular Messaging Apps From App Store ⇥ wsj.com

Aaron Tilley, Liza Lin, and Jeff Horwitz, Wall Street Journal:

Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads as well as messaging platforms Signal and Telegram were taken off the Chinese App Store Friday. Apple said it was told to remove certain apps because of national security concerns, without specifying which.

“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesperson said.

A good argument for supporting protocols over platforms. Threads may have been ejected but it seems impossibly difficult to prohibit ActivityPub entirely. It is not as though HTTP or SMTP are banned in China.